We arrived in Valdez on the 28th late afternoon. Stayed @ the Elks no hookups. They only have room for 2 rigs. A very nice & Friendly lodge.
The next day we went out sightseeing There are 2 museums but one is located in 2 places. We only got to one.
These seagulls were nesting on a ledge of a bridge by the fish hatchery. This is one of the hatchery’s and the pinks were just getting ready to come in.
This river is the one they are imprinted to but alass they will only end up @ the hatchery. 
This carving is amazing & very big. The sign tells the story. Click on the pix. to enlarge it.
I found the tires? on this truck interesting.
On the 30th we used our Alaska Tour Saver book & took a Stan Stephens glacier & wildlife cruise to the Columbia Glacier. It was a 6hr tour. Below is the boat we took & a look as we were heading out.
The red boat is an escort boat for the tankers that come in & out of the harbor.
In this pix are some grain elevators that were built & never used.
This group of Sea Otter was just loafing around. They are the largest members of the weasel family in North America, males weighing up to 100lbs. When not eating about 25% of there body weight they float on there backs grooming & resting
A couple if the many water falls to be seen.
In Alaska there are 30,000 square miles of glacier ice, covering 5% of the state. Glacier ice is blue because the physical properties of the water molecule absorbs all the colors in the spectrum except blue, which is transmitted. Glaciers in Prince William Sound are both retreating (shortening the distance from the origin to the terminus) & advancing, (increasing in size). The Columbia Glacier was the last of Alaska’s tidewater glaciers to go into retreat. The retreat began in 1978, & by 1983 it has moved off it’s terminal moraine, loosing an increasing amount of ice. In 2002 it had retreated for a distance of 7.5 miles, leaving about 18 miles to go before reaching bedrock on shore. It was amazing to see how blue the icebergs can be.
We saw Steller Sea Lions. The large males can be 1,200 lbs. & females 650lbs.They eat @ nite & rest & sun on the rocks in the day. This area is known as Bull Head has a colony of mostly bachelors & are known for there boisterous bellowing.
There were 3 Humpback Whales that we came across. they migrate 6000 miles to reach there Alaska feeding grounds.
there were a couple Dall’s Porpoise. they are the fastest of all the cetaceans swimming up to 35 mph. They weigh up to 400lbs & are 6 to 8 ft long.
There were also some Puffins but they were too fast to get there pix. They were flying in & out of a cave they were nesting in.
Valdez was a great little town & the people were friendly. I spent my birthday there we went out to a nice dinner but forgot the camera.
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